Joseph Byron Totten

Joseph Byron Totten (June 1, 1875 – April 29, 1946) was an American actor, playwright, and director whose career spanned Broadway, early silent film, and the stage from the early twentieth century through the 1940s. A member of the Authors League of America, Totten worked across multiple disciplines in the entertainment industry and maintained a 47-acre farm in Pendleton Hill, Connecticut, where he kept horses, cattle, and a kennel.

Totten's Broadway career extended from 1903 to 1943 and encompassed a range of productions. His stage credits included Alibi Bill, the musical The Love Call, The House of Bondage, The Cowboy and the Squaw, and the play Spook House, among others. He wrote and staged Love's Call, which was later produced on Broadway as the musical The Love Call. In 1925, Charles Sidney Gilpin starred in Totten's play So That's That.

As a playwright, Totten was prolific in the early years of his career. Among the works he wrote or copyrighted were No Gold Could Buy Her, No One Pity Her, The Cowboy and the Squaw, The Ranchman's Daughter, The Queen of the Cowboys, and The First Lady in the Land, the latter two both copyrighted in 1907. That same year he also copyrighted The Forger, described as a society problem play. In 1915 he wrote and directed Lighthouse by the Sea and copyrighted the three-reel, three-act work The Boys Will Be Boys. That year he also wrote a dramatization of Harold McGrath's novel The Woman Armsan, which was staged in 1915. Additional stage works included The World and a Woman. In 1925, Totten wrote the lyrics to the song Piquita, with music composed by Arthur Bergh.

Totten also pursued a career as an actor and director in silent film. He worked as an actor for Essanay and appeared in The Amateur Prodigal (1915) as John Life and took a starring role in The Awakening Hour (1915). He starred in Some Crooks in 1917. His directorial film credits included The Blindness of Virtue (1915), The Day Resurgent (1920), The Dream (1920), which starred Alice Calhoun, and While the Auto Waits (1920). He also authored the film The Village Homestead (1915) and appeared in Like Father Like Son (1916).